Being a Priestess of Grace my daily aim is to follow the path of Grace, not only do I follow where Grace leads I allow Her presence to infuse my life. When Grace is invited in karma is dissolved and 'worldly' powers have no effect on us, the caveat here is that we need to be aligned so deep in the Grace that it overcomes our conditioning or the strength of the pulls of this realm. I know at my truest core, that in the face of the One Divine One Mercury Retrograde has no power.

However.....

I'm pretty human and I feel Lady Mercury and her coyote spirit so strongly every time! I purposefully do not look up retrogrades in an attempt to further deepen my fall into Grace, the idea being that "thoughts held in mind produce in their own kind," and not knowing will keep me aligned with Grace and out of the effects of the retrograde, that little trick has not worked as of yet as I still find myself at a loss for words, riled up, impatient and frustrated that what I'm trying to say is not coming out clearly during each Mercury Retrograde that rolls around. Sure enough I check my Moon calendar and there we are in the midst of another Mercury Retrograde.

The beauty of Feminine Mysticism, is that it acknowledges the One Power while also finding the Divine in the human realm and all of the tides, cycles and rhythms that occur to us while embodied. I have found that the gift within the Mercury Retrogrades that I experience is in the pause, the pausing to think a little bit harder before I speak, to contemplate a little more mindfully before I act and to breathe a little bit deeper when it takes me 30 minutes to register for a new Wordpresss site, still breathhhhiiiinnngg over that one.

This particular retrograde that we are in has been tempting me to get pretty prickly, besides my general Mercury Retrograde struggle to push at keeping life moving smoothly and at a pace that is comfortable for me while stumbling over words (something pretty foreign to this write-a-holic) I found myself at a loss for patience and perseverance in my gentle approach with my toddler Maiden who happens to be going through a developmental leap and teething at the same time that Mercury is retrograde...coincidence? I think not.

Being a Priestess is magical, it is inspiring, uplifting, magnificent. It is also earthy, human and common. A Priestess is the bridge between both the Otherworld and the here and now, and in my here and now Mothering a one and a half year old Maiden takes up a good chunk of my practice.

The first 48 hours of this retrograde her and I butted heads, I snapped, which is unusual towards her, I was edgy, impatient and temperamental, she just pushed harder, experimenting with hitting, screeching, demanding 'milk, milk, milk' which means breasts out, sitting down and taking a break to breast feed her while I seethed inside trying to rush the process so that I could get back to what I needed to be doing.

By the end of the 48 hours, after a snotty nosed melt down and a nap on Mom I was spent, I knew that I was veering way off my Mother Goddess mark and I took some time to re-evaluate. Not only was I going through another Mercury Retrograde, my sweet little, still-incarnating soul of a daughter was too. I began to empathise with her, still learning how to communicate in this realm, no longer able to desire and instantly manifest like in the one that she has just left behind, trying to learn our language, our societal norms, how to navigate the spectrum of emotions and moods that course through her and me and her father and the world at large and then boom, this cosmic halt on all things smooth insofar as communication goes comes waltzing into our lives. I looked down at her tear stained sleeping face and just felt the weight of this world on her little shoulders, and I just wanted to wrap her up and hold her close, forever, or at least until this retrograde is finished.

This is where my Motherhood began to feed my Priestess path this month. For years now, I have navigated how to flow through retrogrades with as much ease as possible, this month it became about navigating myself and another, as within so without was never so true until my daughter arrived.

What I began to do was to use less words, always a plus with toddlers, but an exaggerated amount less, I sang more, I hugged more, I counted slowly 1....2.....3.....ahhhh haaaa over and over again, I danced, I coloured, I came into myself and relied less on the spoken word and more on the language of the heart. My daughter and I have thrived since this shift, our bond is supernatural again, when we struggle to express ourselves we pause, we hug (she initiates sometimes even!) and we slow down. Our 20 minute walk to the store the other day took us an hour and we had never been so happy.

When I began my journey of the Priestesshood I was inspired by the magic I was beginning to conjure, the inspiration and the connection to the cosmos, I tried to brush off the number of sages, teachers, books and confidantes who had told me that in order to be in the state I was seeking I needed to become willing to be fully human. And then I became a Mother and found that life has never been so ripe with magic as coming fully down into it. I found in my Priestesshood the sacred centre of Gaia and Heaven and in that centre I have discovered that Heaven speaks to me through my life on Gaia. Since my transition into Motherhood my Maiden has reflected back to me the spaces that I have lagged in my spiritual practice, she is the Divine reflection of what was justified away coming up to be addressed. Being spicy isn't an excuse for impatience when there is a little Lamb looking up at me with watery sapphire eyes ready to emulate my response to life disappointing me in the moments that I am tempted to loose my temper. Flying off the handle and yelling at my Beloved because I'm a wild feminine Oceanic expression of the Goddess doesn't cut it when my daughter's whole concept of God is my sweet husband for now, may she never believe that the Goddess should destroy the God because of her femininity. And ignoring my need to be where I'm at, sensitive to Mercury Retrograde, and push ahead bullheaded and insistent that I be heard as I forcefully try to explain myself 'one more time', doesn't cut it when my little girl begins hitting and screeching because she isn't being heard and to because to be honest life is like one big Mercury Retrograde for her at this age.

I bow down to my life on Gaia and give reverent thanks for the lessons I am afforded. I shudder in embarrassment at the arrogant insistence I had that life be more magical, less earthy, and more deep than other people's in order for me to justify my existence on it. And I breathe as I reflect during this retrograde, finally stopping to follow the lead of this spiral path and learning from the moment that we are in.

I look forward to guiding my daughter as she ages, teaching her about astrology, the occult, retrogrades, moon phases, red tents, all of the juicy aspects of life that have lit me up. I'm also prepared to learn how to play basketball, study biology, listen to her fascination in mathematics, or any other number of interests she may decide are inspiring to her, despite how lost I feel in those subjects. Her emerging self will reveal to me how to best Mother her as she grows. But for now, until she tells me otherwise, she has a Priestess as a Mother and I will follow my path to support and love her in the best way that I can, and today that means slowing down, getting quiet, reflecting and listening deeper while closing my mouth.

I will listen to Mercury Retrograde, I will listen to the reflections that my loved ones shine upon me and I will listen to my gut, my inner wombspace of wisdom and I will allow myself to grow and to learn in the uncomfortable spaces. As I learn to do this for myself and to support my daughter in being held through her first experiences with frustration and impatience I become better equipped to take my Mother presence, the space within me that expresses the Mother Goddess, into the world to nurture, hold space and unconditionally love all of the children, both small and grown, as we flow to the best of our ability along the spiral path of the Goddess.

When a Native Canadian man once told me that my animal totem was the butterfly I was initially disappointed. Being short in stature already and having a tiny frame I thought that he was mistaken. He must not have fully connected to spirit and his medicine and was subconsciously associating teeny me with the teeny butterfly. I knew that inside was ferocity, passion, fearlessness, I was certain I was a cat, a tiger, a spider, something feminine, dark, mysterious and sexy. When I was given my Native name : Little Soaring Butterfly, I decided it was time to get to know my totem and to open up to the idea that perhaps this medicine man had seen something that I had missed.

In my study of the butterfly there were a few things that I resonated with from the beginning, one was the constant transformation that those who have or work with the butterfly totem experience in their lives. Being a Scorpio who is constantly digging, unearthing, discarding and rebuilding, my life has felt like a continuous construction site undergoing transformation after transformation. Another aspect that I resonated with was the blessings that the butterfly totem leaves behind her as she moves, with each flutter of her wings the butterfly sheds iridescent scales, leaving a path of light wherever she goes. This concept inspired me and was in alignment with the path of Grace that I follow, the idea that I need not do anything but rather that I can be the presence of spirit and bless the world that I encounter provided I remain in alignment with the Goddess within was one that I endeavoured to live up to already, the visual of leaving scales of light behind drew the butterfly spirit deep into my very own heart. When I learnt that a beautiful butterfly is poisonous to the predators that catch and eat it I knew that I had indeed received the correct totem. A tiny, cute, transformative being that sheds light but is deadly if attacked, I could get on board with that.

The transformations that have occurred throughout my life have been of varying degrees with varying affects on my life, intensive eye surgeries as a child created massive transformation in my resilience and maturation process. Loosing jobs and having newer and better opportunities show up at just the moment I needed it have strengthened my faith in Grace. From getting sober to breaking up with my boyfriend, varying degrees, varying results, constant shifts and transformative growth have been a mainstay of my life.

The butterfly totem had been showing up in my life as transformative experiences and opportunities to grow and to evolve, however the butterfly herself is a completely transformed being, she doesn't just go through an ordeal as a caterpillar and become a stronger or wiser caterpillar, she actually becomes a completely different being. I hadn't had that experience, I had had some close experiences where it seemed as though who I was was morphed and about to become a new being, yet in actuality I was becoming a more whole and integrated aspect of myself. I didn't desire to become a new being because on this journey I had learnt to love myself exactly as I was. I expected that I would continue on through my life having different transformative experiences and expanding and growing because of them and was content to except that as the way of life.

The butterfly totem it seems had a different plan in mind for me and I was destined to not only receive her medicine through life experiences, I was called to leave behind my life as a caterpillar and to emerge as a new being. Much to my surprise it was in becoming a Mother that my total transformation occurred, I went from being a Maiden caterpillar and emerged as a Mother butterfly. When I was pregnant I didn't know that I was in my cocoon and I had no idea that becoming a Mother would be the event that morphed me into a new being. Before this transformation occurred if I had contemplated an event that could bring me into this all encompassing rebirth I would have guessed at many more deep or seemingly spiritual events that would have done it. I would have thought that it would be one of my many meditations, a moment in a 12 step meeting, during a Goddess circle that I was leading or on a solstice or a miraculous event that spontaneously dawned upon me while out in nature, I probably would have guessed anything besides becoming a Mom. Doing what millions of women do every day and giving birth to a baby would not have been the spectacular event that this Priestess would envision as her moment of becoming and yet here I sit in a new state and as a new being 15 months later.

I hadn't recognized the total transmutation into another being that I had become at first, I was mired down in diapers, breast milk and indescribable awe and intense hormones. In fact it wasn't until I returned to my hometown and my parents house that I knew, not only had my daughter been born anew, I too was a new being.

My hometown is a tiny, sleepy city that was wrought with bad memories, dense energy and family systems that seemed so toxic I was certain I would stay away forever, never did I imagine that I would ever be present for very long with my precious Maiden.

As I walked through my hometown the spots that held memories of deep pain and shame and a reality that today is like a distant nightmare were simple plots of land, free from any energetic ties that once held me. I walked a free woman any place in the city. At home when family members behaved in ways that hooked me in the past I found myself responding as any outsider would, with interest a bit of mirth and walking away when the dynamics began to feel tense. I wasn't tied to how they acted anymore, I didn't internalize it as a part of me or as being caused by me.

I am free. I see my family as beautifully human and real people, they are no longer demons that have cut me and damaged a part of me irrevocably, they are raw and real and forgiven. I watch my daughter fall in love with them, she senses their blood and is at home in her tribe when she is around them. I watch as they carefully apply principles that they know we uphold in our home, so nervous that one wrong move will take me and baby packing, across the country, far from home, where I've been for the past 10 years now. I love them and I honour them and I stay with them when they are human, I no longer punish them for their past as I have been freed from mine and pray that I never hold another person in bondage to theirs.

I in no way believe that having a baby just busted open the doors to freedom, gave me butterfly wings and erased all of the pain from my past. I know that the intensive work that the path that I have walked has laid the foundation for the opportunity to fly, I just had no idea that Motherhood would be the catalyst to receiving my butterfly wings.

As a Priestess the cycles that we dance through as a woman moves me deeply, I am a firm believer that a woman needs not ever birth a child in order to move into the Mother stage of her life. I chose with the magic of the Goddess and the commitment of my Beloved to become a Mother, for me childbirth was the door to the Mother phase of my life. However I've always been connected to my Mother self, even as a young Maiden I was called to care for and to nurture, my artist births babies through my creations, I have been Mothering my entire life. The switch into Mother as the primary role came with the birth of my daughter. If it is not childbirth that is your doorway to entering the Mother stage of life it will be something that moves you deeply, opens your heart wide open and lights your life up in ways that you have never seen before. When you enter your Mother stage of life you will be compelled to nurture, extend, care for and Mother all. This may not be your transformative moment though, it was mine but each of us have a unique blueprint to our soul's walk along this spiral path of the Earth~bound experience.

As the majority of the Western world celebrates the coming in of a new year and releases the old I encourage us all to walk towards transforming who we are into new beings, free beings, beings that are released from the bondage of who it is that we were taught to be.

I encourage those of us walking a conscious path to explore the animal totems and to find the one that resonates with who you are, to take stock of your life up until this point, honouring the dark nights of the soul, revelling in the bright lightness of the highs that you have sailed upon and being open to the revelation of what your next step is to be. As we all transform and are released we raise the vibration that is being held on Mother Gaia, we make the way lighter and easier for all of those in this reality. Many, many souls are being called to leave this realm and many souls are re~entering again, let us raise the potential for global transformation to occur through our own personal work and surrendered walking into 2015.

I don't know what your transforming moment will be. In hindsight I am not surprised that becoming a Mother was mine, it was the moment that I began to be an expanded self, I was no longer an extension of my ancestry, I became a link in a chain that extended beyond myself and this has caused me to be more giving and altruistic than I ever could have been based upon morals and values alone. As I tend the life that came through me, that will continue on after me, that carries the blood line of my Grandmothers and myself I begin to serve in a microcosmic way the way that I am called to be to the entire macrocosm. For me it truly does begin at home and my personal goal is to go out into the macrocosm treating each being as if they are the child that I have birthed, for beneath it all we are all innocent children walking the most integral path that we can in this given moment. I endeavour to be the Mother Goddess to her children upon this Earth and give eternal thanks to my daughters soul, she chose me to birth her and has given me my wings.

I will soar into the next year and hope to have many sisters and brothers by my side.

Happy Monday, today's Airy Monday News Beagle features archaelogical news of interest to Pagans & their allies: an Iron Age chariot; history of Aphrodite; South Indian mother goddess; more at Amphipolis; ancient Canaanite temple.

This "once in a lifetime" discovery unearthed of an Iron Age hoard that archaeologists believe was buried as part of an ancient (Pagan) religious ritual.

I first began to utilize 'Priestessing' as a verb during my second week postpartum.

During that time I texted my childhood friend, Melanie, from the couch that I was unable to leave. Being stuck on the couch was a surprising situation for me to be in, for while I had planned on doing a 40 day sit in with my newborn Maiden, I hadn't planned on my carefully planned for home water birth becoming a C-section, nor for the recovery time that it would entail. Least of all was I planning on getting an infected cyst inside of my inner thigh just as I began to get the strength to be up and about for extended periods of time on my own.

I had envisioned the sit in being peaceful (which for the most part it was) and myself floating around on a cloud, wearing my baby, breastfeeding and napping, and, while I did nap and breastfed with her consistently I was definitely not floating nor was I wearing her. My stomach incision was too painful and at the moment that I was texting Melanie I was sitting on gauze pads sans pants or underwear oozing pus and blood onto the pad as my baby slept nestled in my arm. I was in shock from an operation that I wasn't expecting, new Motherhood hormones and that darn infected cyst. To top it all off, I was only 8 days into my 40 day sit~in I was starting to feel stir crazy.

As a child I experienced everything around me with awe and wonder. Receiving magic was natural and seamless. The path of the Priestess helped me to keep this channel open, and as a Maiden Priestess I revelled in my role as Receiver of Magic. In ceremony and ritual I was taken away on the wings of the energy, the music, and the Spirit helpers that joined us. During retreats I was guided through meditations that opened my crown chakra, I would soak in sacred waters, and spend hours practicing yoga. I could walk the Earth, still and contemplative, or run wildly with the wind rushing through my hair. I was an adult, yet I was still a Maiden, my life was still my own. Just when, where and how I served the Divine and her children was still my prerogative.

Pregnancy was the beginning of my transition from Maiden to Mother. I knew that I was walking through the fires of my rite of passage when I was in it, but I could not have anticipated what it would mean for me as a Priestess. I was prepared to lose my freedom in exchange for devoted service to the nurturing of my daughter Gracious and her soul's descent into the flesh. It was the dimming of the magic and the loss of space and time to consciously receive it that I wasn't prepared for. The elation of new motherhood was tempered by surprising feelings of grief. In prayer I realized that the tension of transition had brought a feeling of loss for the former phase of my life. I was grieving because I was becoming ready to embrace a new phase.